I am a small scale private breeder in southeast PA (Chester County, near Pottstown). These are my goals:
- Make high quality, locally bred and adapted, chicks available to backyard chicken keepers
- Preserve and distribute rare breeds and rare colors/patterns of poultry
- Create new color and pattern varieties of existing breeds (Welsummers in particular)
- Mentor other breeders with genetic and business advice
- Produce high quality genetics for sustainable agriculture and homesteading
We specialize in sexable chicks and specialized genetics. If you are looking to purchase chicks for egg production, I have some unique advantages over the local feed store or TSC:
- Guaranteed female chicks – be careful about buying chicks from a bin marked “pullets”, the way that most chicks are sexed is not 100% accurate. If you read the fine print from the hatchery, they only guarantee 90% accuracy. In practice, most do a little better than that, usually 95%, but that still means that 1 out of 20 pullets in that bin is a cockerel. Can you deal with that? I sex chicks by color, using genetics to accurately predict the way the female chicks will look. I even guarantee that, offering a full refund and will take back any cockerels I sold as pullets. Ask, but the feed stores are not likely to do this for you.
- Marek’s Disease vaccinations – The process of vaccinating adds costs and effort, as chicks have to be vaccinated within 24 hours of hatching to be fully protected. Some chicks in the feed stores are vaccinated, but be sure to ask. If they don’t know, it is a safe bet they are not, as they can save a few cents per chick.
- Locally hatched – these chicks have never had the stress of shipping. Shipping day old poultry is a common practice in the industry, and sometimes a necessity to move rare breeds around the country. There are casualties to be expected, and the stress of shipping is real and can harm the chicks in the long term. If you choose to not participate in this, look for local breeders. It does limit your choices to some degree, but your chicks will be healthier and happier as a result.
- Unique breeds and hybrids – every year I try to have new breeds and am always working to improve the older ones. Some of these can not be found anywhere else, and others are more carefully bred for their desirable traits than other sources. For example, I am introducing Isabel Welbars (Lavender gene in my autosexing Welsummers) this year. These are not “finished” yet, but they are very pretty and great layers. The egg color is not fixed, some lay olive eggs, some dark brown, and some a lighter shade of brown or green.
Another focus is on helping other poultry breeders get started and learn how to maintain populations of poultry for their own enjoyment and to supply chicks to their local community. I am consciously trying to create more competition for my “side hustle” so that I can scale down my breeding operations over the next few years. If this is the direction you are thinking about, we should talk. While the large hatcheries meet most of the demand for generic chicks, there is always some backyard chicken keepers who are looking for something unique, or a higher quality experience, and working with a serious local breeder can provide that. Maybe you will be one of those local breeders.
The best way to contact me is via email – 4chicky@mail.com
You can also follow Pottstown Poultry on Facebook.